OK, I don’t actually avoid eggs in my diet. However I do try to avoid them when they’re thrown at me.

I suppose my ridiculously white legs in black shorts with a yoga mat were too exquisite a target to ignore. I was late out of the house trying to make a 4pm yoga class at the gym on a Saturday, only the second class I’ve ever taken in public. I decided to save time by heading there in my workout clothes. Picked up my yoga mat and shuddered. I was going to be one of those people walking around in public with my yoga mat. I always projected that those people walking around the financial district were ready to hit people with their soft rubber emblems of superiority. “Move it, people; enlightened one coming through! Namaste, motherfuckers!” I readied myself for a new kind of walk of shame and hotfooted it out the door.

I knew I was going to miss the start of the class but hoped I wouldn’t be too much of an interruption entering late. Yet again, I was going to be That Guy. My self-opinion was starting to waver. I considered turning around, but marched on, down 15th street past Truck. (Yes, this happened right outside a gay bar. I’m not convinced that was mere coincidence either.) Suddenly something hit the pavement with a crack in front of me, and I leapt back a step and saw the egg splattered there. I looked for open windows; I looked for cars and bikes passing; I looked for a chicken’s nest in the trees above me, incredulously. No sign of whence it came.

Angered, I thought again about turning around, but something had steeled in me. Thank you for my rage, egg thrower. I went on, determined that I would make my class, that I will do my thing no matter what the universe throws at me—literally or figuratively. That’s a lesson I keep having to learn, to persevere on my path and to wear persecution at worst as a talisman, or as an award, or ideally as nothing more than a meaningless souvenir I picked up on the road to a goal.

A short while later, in the middle of Head-to-Knee pose, while trying to concentrate on my posture and my breathing, my eyes focused instead on a small yellow stain plastering down the hairs on one leg. And all I could was laugh.

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